Purdue pharma

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Nevada and five other states are filing new lawsuits accusing a pharmaceutical company of using deceptive marketing to boost drug sales that fueled opioid overdose deaths. Nevada state Attorney General Adam Laxalt alleges in a civil complaint filed Tuesday in Las Vegas that Purdue Pharma minimized risks and overstated benefits of long-term use of narcotic opioids including OxyContin. Laxalt spokeswoman Monica Moazez says similar lawsuits were expected in Florida, North Carolina, North Dakota, Tennessee and Texas. Connecticut-based Purdue denied the claims in an email statement that said it will defend itself. Company spokesman Bob Josephson says the civil lawsuits followed months of negotiations with state officials to address the opioid crisis. He says the filing by these attorneys general promises costly and protracted litigation. … [Read more...] about Nevada, 5 other states suing opioid maker Purdue Pharma

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Several U.S. state attorneys general on Tuesday announced lawsuits against OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP, accusing the company of fueling a national opioid epidemic by deceptively marketing prescription painkillers to generate billions of dollars in sales. FILE PHOTO: Bottles of prescription painkiller OxyContin made by Purdue Pharma LP sit on a shelf at a local pharmacy in Provo, Utah, U.S., April 25, 2017. REUTERS/George Frey The attorneys general of Nevada, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, North Dakota and Tennessee separately said the company had violated state consumer protection laws by falsely denying or downplaying the risk of addiction while overstating the benefits of opioids. Reporting by Tina Bellon; Editing by Bernadette Baum … [Read more...] about U.S. state attorneys general sue Purdue Pharma over opioid epidemic

Pureradiancephoto/Getty When Sean Thatcher was a sales rep at Purdue Pharma, which makes OxyContin, doctors he visited often complained that their patients were developing tolerance to the opioid painkiller. Thatcher, who worked for the company between 2009 and 2015 in Montana, was instructed to tell the prescribers to increase the dose, and to clarify that addiction isn’t the same as tolerance, or “pseudoaddiction.” He received a bonus based on the number of opioid prescriptions written by the physicians he visited, with higher sales of OxyContin in particular garnering bigger bonuses. The allegations come from a testimonial included in a lawsuit that Montana filed against Purdue Pharma in February—one that is now part of national multi-district litigation alleging that pharmaceutical companies sowed the seeds of today’s raging opioid epidemic. According to the state’s complaint, Purdue sales reps in Montana paid far … [Read more...] about “I Was Directed to Market OxyContin:” A Purdue Pharma Rep Tells How He Was Paid to Push Opioids